SATURDAY NOVEMBER 28

After a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with loved ones, and a lot of great food, it was time to return to the Oddysea. Our daughter, Krista, dropped us at the airport in Minneapolis on Friday morning and we arrived last night to Panama City, Florida. Not many travelers, making it comfortable traveling, rather than the usual sardine scenario. We were happy to be back on board and see that all was well. We took a nice walk in the morning to get a bit of exercise after all the sitting yesterday. It was a cool morning, and the salt air smells so incredible! There's nothing like it. The weather was forecast to be a pleasant day, so we opted to go out in the Gulf for our 25+ mile trip to Port St. Joe. It was the first time for the Oddysea to be in the Gulf. Ross commented that this was the clearest water Oddysea had been in since we left Lake Michigan with her 7 years ago. There was a light chop on the water, sun shining and pods of dophins to watch.



We arrived at Port St. Joe Marina and headed up town to the local Piggly Wiggly to reprovision. The marina had a couple of 3-wheeled bicycles with baskets for boaters to use. Once we got over the "dork factor" we found they were a lot of fun. We felt like kids riding around on Big Wheels! The store was only about 2 blocks away. By the time we got to the check out, we had a full grocery cart load. No way would all this fit in those bike baskets. Wrong!! We could have bought more stuff. We road them right down the dock and out to the boat.


This is a very friendly and accomodating marina.
Way back when on the Tennessee River at Pebble Isle Marina we first met Ray and Patsy of the "PatsyRay". They welcomed us on the dock there and told us about Port St. Joe, Florida and invited us to come and visit their town. Well, we came, and they were here to welcome us. And once again, they organized dinner for the Loopers and others. We fianally crossed paths, or should I say wakes, with our friends Diann and Tom Lanham from Noah Genda. We first met back at Alton Marina on the Mississippi. We have mostly stayed updated on each other's progress through our blogs as Ida disrupted all of our travels. It was good to see them again and catch up. Ray and Patsy made arrangements for anyone who wanted, to go uptown to a Mexican restaraunt called Peppers. Good food, reasonably priced.